1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data storage enclosures that provide housing and access to hard drives, control electronics, power supplies, cooling equipment, and other storage-related support electronics and equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Rectangular box-shaped metal chassis of differing depths are universally used for the storage and ready accessibility of magnetic disk drive storage media. Typically, the chassis"" body is mounted with screws to four surrounding rack mount posts forming a storage rack. As installed, the chassis is accessible at its front and back for viewing, replacement, repair and monitoring of its contents.
There is currently no industry standard for the depth of such chassis or the storage racks. A smaller chassis often is preferred based on the size of the equipment stored in the chassis and/or because it is more portable. A small size chassis is not deep enough to be mounted to a larger-sized storage rack, limiting its installation to small size storage racks only. The need to purchase racks of different sizes results in extra expense accompanied by a need for additional storage space to fit the varying sizes of storage racks and chassis. This situation also results in chassis boxes of different sizes being spread out, instead of being mounted together in one conveniently located storage rack.
The invention is directed to an apparatus for adjustably mounting a data storage chassis and a method of mounting the apparatus to rack mount posts.
The apparatus comprises a box-shaped chassis having opposing front and rear faces, each of the faces having opposing sides, and opposing top and bottom ends. The rear face of the chassis has at least one rail opening therein. For each rail opening, the chassis includes a rail-receiving guide path internal to the chassis and coupled to the corresponding rail opening. Residing within the guide path is a corresponding rail, slidably dispensable to couple the rail to the chassis. Each rail""s exterior end includes a respective adapter for attachment to a predefined rack mount post.
The method of mounting a data storage chassis comprises positioning the box-shaped chassis between three or four rack mount posts, including two front rack mount posts, and one or two rear rack mount posts. The front face of the chassis is connected to the front rack mount posts. Each rail is inserted into a rail opening in the rear face leading to a guide path within the chassis, and then each rail is then slidably adjusted to a desired position within its guide path(s). The chassis is secured by attaching the rail(s) to the respective rear rack mount post(s).
This invention avoids the otherwise inconvenient need to install storage racks of varying depths to accommodate chassis of varying depths. The present invention""s adjustable rack mount system uses slidable rails to accommodate chassis of differing depths, which are often preferred depending on the size of the magnetic disk drive storage or other contents. Accordingly, a smaller size chassis may be conveniently, quickly, safely and securely mounted to larger storage racks because the rails, once extended out of the guide paths and mounted to the rack, hold the chassis in place and support the weight of the contents of the chassis as if the rear face of the chassis were itself connected to the rack.
Consequently, with this invention, there is no need to purchase and accommodate multiple sets of storage racks for different sizes of chassis, because chassis of different sizes may be adjustably mounted on the same set of racks. As a result, the invention further obviates the expense of purchasing and installing multiple sets of storage racks to accommodate chassis of differing depths. On the other hand, if a facility already has racks of various sizes, the chassis with this invention can be easily adjusted to fit any of them. The invention also provides various further advantages as described below.